




'>^ 



^' 






^ ^:^ 



^^1-%^ ^.., ^ .':^)^^^ 




-^o. 






^1 




^^•n> 



*^m>r^ ^ <?- 








V ^-°-^ :,^ 









'^0* 







vO' 




V ^*Tr;-' ^^^ 



^- c/ ^I&^'"o % ^^^ ^\ 




/% •.HP'/ /-% ^TO^- ^'^^■^*. -.1^/ /\ 






























. '"^^^ J^^^ ^>Va^. "^^ A^ ' **^ 






v^9- 



-^^^^^ 



'"- V /.-:^.'\ .<.^;:X co^-^.'\ 














The Whitefield House 



ON 



The Ephrata Property 



AT 



NAZARETH, PA. 

1740-1914 



AN HISTORICAL SKETCH 
by 
The Rev. A. L. Oerter, A.M. 

1914 



bethlehem, pa. 

Times Publishing Company 

1914 



lyq 



H 



A LITTLE FOREWORD 

The author is aware of the fact that the history presented in these 
pages is not new to most Moravian readers, but somehow he was led to 
reproduce it in a somewhat different form. Visitors to the Whitefield 
House have sometimes expressed a desire to have a printed account of 
the origin and history of the building that seems to impress all who are 
susceptible to the influence of such venerable structures as strong links 
connecting the busy present with the historic past, and this narrative 
may possibly tend to satisfy such a desire. May it at least not prove al- 
together unworthy of perusal, and perhaps contribute its mite towards 
the preservation of the knowledge of worthy and noble deeds worthily 
and nobly done by our Moravian spiritual forefathers. 

Authorities consulted for the history were, chiefly, the Rt. Rev. L. T. 
Reichel's "Early History of the Moravian Church in North America," 
the Rt. Rev. J. T. Hamilton's "History of the Moravian Church," the 
Rt. Rev. J. M. Levering's "History of Bethlehem," and the "Transactions 
of the Moravian Historical Society." 

Hearty thanks to those friends whose kind liberality has procured 
the publication of this booklet, and especially to the Rev. S. J. Blum, 
D.D., for his very kind encouragement and practical, fraternal coopera- 
tion. 



Digitized by tine Internet Archive 
in 2010 witii funding from 
Tine Library of Congress 



littp://www.archive.org/details/wliitefieldliouseoOOoert 



The Whitefield House 

NAZARETH, PA. 

The Rev. A. L. Oerter, A.M. 

Nazareth, in Northampton County, Pa., a thriving municipality of 
about four thousand inhabitants, the seat of the widely-known military 
academy Nazareth Hall, is indebted for its name to that great evangelist 
of the eighteenth century, the Rev. George Whitefield, whose own name 
is perpetuated in the town by the historic Whitefield House, the White- 
field Lodge, F. & A. M., and Whitefield Street. 

The story of the origin and building of the interesting edifice just 
mentioned carries us back almost two hundred years to the time when 
this part of Pennsylvania was an unbroken forest-wilderness, still 
claimed and in part occupied by its aboriginal owners, the Delaware 
Indians. The man who had conceived the idea of building such a large 
and substantially constructed house in this wilderness must have been 
no ordinary individual, and must have had an extraordinary motive for 
so doing. Such was indeed the case, and therefore, before we proceed 
to speak of the house which he had planned, but did not eventually 
build, it may seem apropos, especially in view of the fact that on De- 
cember 27th of this year the bicentennial of his birth will be observed, 
to rehearse briefly what has been recorded of his life and work. 

The Rev. George Whitefield was born December 16 (O.S.), 27 (N.S.), 
1714, in the city of Gloucester, a place of note in history from the very 
earliest times, the capital of the county of the same name, in the 
southwest midland district of England. He was the youngest of a 
family of six sons and one daughter. His father, an inn-keeper in 
Gloucester, died when George was two years old, but his mother con- 
tinued the business. His paternal grandfather and great-grandfather 
had been clergymen of the Established Church, and he perhaps in- 
herited from them his talent for pulpit oratory. 

His mother, desiring to give him a good education, sent him at 
twelve years of age to a grammar-school in the city, where his skill in 
elocution attracted marked attention. He also became fond of read- 
ing plays, thus laying the foundation for the conspicuous dramatic ele- 
ment in his preaching. Three years later he was taken from school, 
and for a year and a half assisted his mother in the public-house as a 
pot-boy or waiter. In his own account he refers to his conduct in his 
early years as reprehensible. 

Returning to school in order to prepare for the university, the re- 
ligious impressions he had felt at different times were deepened, and 
when he entered Pembroke College, Oxford, as a servitor, in 1732 or 
'33, he resolved to live a holy life. Under the influence of the Wesleys, 
his religious impressions were still further deepened and he joined the 
so-called Holy Club, observing its stringent rules so zealously that his 
health failed and he was obliged to return home after having passed 
through great distress of mind before he found peace and professed 
conversion. 

The Bishop of Gloucester, noticing his sincere and fervent piety, or- 
dained him a deacon in 1736. Returning to Oxford, he took his degree 
as B.A. and began to preach in several cities, his eloquence attracting 



6 AN HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE WHITEFIELD HOUSE 

immense multitudes. The Wesleys having requested him to come to 
them in Georgia, he sailed for America in December, 1737, or Janu- 
ary, 1738, arriving at Savannah in May. Here he spent six months, 
preaching with great acceptance, and founding an Orphanage which 
he named Bethesda. He returned to England to receive priest's orders, 
and to solicit contributions for the support of his Orphanage, but was 
coldly received by the clergy and some churches were closed to him, 
probably on account of the Calvinistic views he had adopted. Many 
pamphlets attacking his doctrines were published, to which he replied 
with some asperity. With the Wesleys he maintained the doctrine of 
justification by faith and the new birth, and preached in those churches 
that would receive him. In 1739 he went to Bristol, and meeting with 
opposition preached to colliers and others in the open air, sometimes 
to as many as twenty thousand hearers. Then he began his evangel- 
istic career in Wales and Scotland, accompanied with great results. 

In August, 1739, he embarked again for America, remaining in this 
country for two years, preaching to delighted multitudes in all the 
principal towns and elsewhere, from Massachusetts to Georgia. When 
he preached in Boston, the great revival which had begun in North- 
ampton, under Jonathan Edwards, "broke out anew, and perhaps 
Boston never saw a greater awakening." 

Whitefleld early became Calvinistic in his views, and was regarded 
as the leader of the Calvinistic Methodists. This produced a tempor- 
ary disagreement with Wesley, but they were soon united again in a 
firm friendship and each pursued his own special course of activity. 
In London Whitefleld's friends built a church for him which was 
named the Tabernacle. A second visit to Scotland was followed by 
another to Wales, where, in 1741, he married Mrs. Elizabeth James, a 
widow. A son born to them died early. Of home life Whitefleld saw 
little, his activities engaging him constantly. 

After another visit to America, 1744-'48, he found his congregation 
at the Tabernacle dispersed, and was in great financial difficulty. The 
Countess of Huntington, however, befriended him, appointed him one 
of her chaplains, and built and endowed Calvinist Methodist chapels 
in various parts of the country. The remainder of his life was spent 
chiefly in evangelizing tours in Great Britain, Ireland and America. 

In 1769 he returned to America for the seventh and last time. In 
appearance he had changed so much that he looked like an old man, 
fairly worn out in his Master's service. He placed himself on what he 
called "short allowance," preaching only once every week-day and 
thrice on Sunday. To those who advised him to take some rest, he 
replied, "I had rather wear out than rust out." His last sermon 
was preached in Exeter, Mass., where, notwithstanding his great weak- 
ness, he made a last great effort and held the audience spellbound for 
two hours. On the same day he proceeded to Newburyport, intending 
to preach there the next day. In the evening, as he took his candle, 
intending to retire, he was asked for an exhortation, which he con- 
tinued until the candle burned out. The next morning, September 30, 
1770, he died. In accordance with his own desire he was buried before 
the pulpit of the Presbyterian church in Newburyport. 

In person Whitefleld has been described by one writer as "graceful, 
well-proportioned, above the middle size in stature, his eyes dark blue, 
small and sprightly, his complexion fair, his countenance manly. Both 
his face and voice were softened with an uncommon degree of sweet- 
ness, and he was neat, easy in deportment and without affectation. He 
had a strong, musical voice, under wonderful command. Twenty thou- 
sand people could hear him. Every accent of his voice spoke to the ear; 
every feature of his face and every motion of his hands spoke to the 
eye." 

Another writer says: "While in presence he was not the most ma- 
jestic or the most attractive, all defects were lost sight of the moment 
that eloquent voice began to peal out its unrivalled music. The term 



AN HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE WHITEFIELD HOUSE 7 

'seraphic' was not given to him for his exterior grace or his symmetri- 
cal features. It was the spirit within him shining through and illumi- 
nating those features, until the audience, hushed or excited, were ready 
to doubt if the speaker were a man or an angel. The eloquence of 
Whitefield was owing to a combination of qualities rather than to any 
single excellence. The great foundation of it all lay in a soul of intense 
emotions stirred to its very depths by the power of religion. He was a 
consecrated man from the first. * * * This burning zeal for Christ 
found expression in the gesture, the countenance and the voice. In 
gesture no man ever excelled, perhaps none ever equalled him. A single 
movement of his finger, with the accompanying expression of his face, 
could thrill an audience or dissolve them in tears. His face, radiant 
with the light from heaven, which he had caught on the Mount of Com- 
munion, begat an immediate sympathy as all eyes were riveted upon it. 
But when that face began to throw off from its lustrous surface the rays 
of divine intelligence, and when tears and smiles alternated, as the sub- 
ject \yas pensive or joyful, how did the audience with responsive sym- 
pathy weep or rejoice under the eloquent preacher! But the voice, what 
shall we say of that? It could be heard distinctly, on a clear, still even- 
ing, for a mile. It was smooth, variable, and could express the gentlest 
emotions. It was capable, also, of swelling into thunder-peals, and then 
every ear tingled and every heart trembled. If the organ of some grand 
cathedral had the power to speak and could express the finest and 'most 
tender sentiments from its delicate pipes and roll forth the majestic 
thoughts on its largest ones, it would give some idea of Whitefield's 
variable and powerful tones.' 

Lfecky, the noted British historian, does not write so enthusiastically. 
He says, "Whitefield was chiefly a creature of impulse and emotion. 
He had very little logical skill, no depth or range of knowledge, not 
much self-restraint. His one talent was his gift of popular oratory, 
the secret of which was his command of clear and direct English, his 
remarkable elocutionary and dramatic skill, and his passionate fervor 
and simple pathos." 

The fact remains that by his eloquent and persuasive sermons he 
exercised a powerful influence for good over large numbers of people, 
convincing many of sin, and turning them to righteousness. His preach- 
ing is said to have melted Dr. Jonathan Edwards to tears. Benjamin 
Franklin, who went to hear him in Philadelphia, experienced his great 
persuasive power. On that occasion he perceived, as he himself wrote, 
that a collection would be taken for the benefit of Whitefield's Orphan- 
age in Georgia. Although he had gold, silver and copper in his pocket, 
Franklin resolved to give nothing. But as the preacher proceeded, "I 
began to soften and concluded to give the copper. Another stroke of his 
oratory determined me to give the silver, and he finished so admirably 
that I emptied my pocket wholly into the collection dish, gold and all." 

But Whitefield's activity was not limited to his powerful pulpit utter- 
ances. In his sermon on his departed friend, Wesley spoke not only of 



8 AN HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE WHITEFIELD HOUSE 

his "unparalleled zeal" and "indefatigable activity," but also of his 
"tender-heartedness" and "charitableness towards the poor." The poor 
and lowly no doubt constituted the great majority of his audiences. His 
sympathy for the poor and his practical benevolence led him to appoint 
John Cennick, later a prominent Moravian evangelist and pastor, as 
schoolmaster for the children of colliers at Kingswood, England, and to 
establish an orphanage, which he named Bethesda, in Georgia. 

The Baeony of Nazareth. 

The same spirit of benevolence caused him, when on his voyage from 
Savannah, Georgia, to Pennsylvania, in 1740, to determine "to establish 
a Negro school in Pennsylvania, where he proposed to take up land in 
order to settle a town for the reception of such English friends whose 
hearts God should incline to come and settle there." On board ship he 
wrote to the Secretary of the Society for the Furtherance of the Gospel 
in Foreign Parts: "To me Pennsylvania seems to be the best Province 
in America for such an undertaking. The Negroes meet there with the 
best usage, and I believe many of my acquaintance will either give me 
or let me purchase their young slaves at a very easy rate. I intend 
taking up a tract of land far back in the country." There it was his in- 
tention not only to found a school for negro children, but also a village 
or tojvn in which such persons as were oppressed in England might find 
a place of refuge. 

On his first visit to Pennsylvania, in 1739, "seeing the moral destitu- 
tion of the Germans, who formed a large part of the population, and not 
being able to preach to them in their language, he wrote to Count 
Zinzendorf, requesting him to send German missionaries. Zinzendorf 
complied with this request, and thus Whitefield was partly instrumental 
in introducing the Moravian Brethren into Pennsylvania." 

In the following year, when he sailed from Savannah, Georgia, for 
Pennsylvania, he gave a passage on his sloop to the Rev. Peter Boehler 
and the rest of the Moravian colonists in Georgia, who had remained 
there until that time, the colony being then abandoned. Carrying out 
the plan he had formed on this voyage, of taking up land in Pennsyl- 
vania, "far back in the country," Whitefield, with the aid of his finan- 
cial agent, William Seward, purchased for £2200 five thousand acres 
of land in the "Forks of the Delaware" — the tract being almost identical 
with the present Upper Nazareth Township in Northampton County — 
from William Allen, of Philadelphia, to whom an unlocated holding 
of ten thousand acres had some years before been conveyed by William 
Penn, grandson of the original Proprietor. To this tract Whitefield, 
with the intended school and village especially in mind, gave the name 
which the present town and township still bear — Nazareth. 

"In records of Colonial times this tract is occasionally called 'The 
Barony of Nazareth,' because its title carried with it certain old seign- 
iorial prerogatives of the Hundreds and Baronies of Great Britain and 
Ireland, being part of a grant of twenty-five thousand acres made in 



AN HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE WHITEFIELD HOUSE 9 

1682 by William Penn to his daughter Letitia Aubrey, the Deed grant- 
ing 'the Franchise, Royalty, Right, etc., to erect the said five thousand 
acres of land, or any part or parts thereof, into a manor, and to have 
and to hold Court Baron therein, etc., etc' These dignities and privi- 
leges passed with the title through the several conveyances and nomi- 
nally pertained to it until the termination of Proprietary government 
in Pennsylvania rendered them null and void. The romantic quit- 
rent— a red rose in June— led to naming the Moravian hostelry on the 
northern border of the Barony 'The Rose'." (Bishop Levering's History 
of Bethlehem.) 

Having secured his title to the land, Whitefleld's first object was to 
find a suitable location for the erection of a house that would be 
adapted to the purpose for which he designed it, and to obtain me- 
chanics who would build the house. It was to be a large building, fifty- 
six feet in length and thirty-five feet in breadth, of two stories and a 
garret, and was to be solidly constructed of stone. 

On the fifth of May, 1740, Whitefield was preaching at the house of 
Christopher Wiegner, one of the pioneer settlers, whose farm was in 
the Skippack woods, (now Montgomery County,) about two miles south 
of the present Kulpsville, and about eight miles southwest of Hatfield 
station on the Pennsylvania Railroad. Wiegner was one of a company 
of Schwenkfelders who had come to Pennsylvania in 1734. These people 
had been enjoying Count Zinzendorfs protection on his Berthelsdorf 
manor until a royal edict of 1733 compelled them to leave Saxony. 
Wiegner and several others had entered into close fellowship with the 
people of Herrnhut and, hence, in his house in the Skippack woods 
many Moravians found hospitality on their journeys in Pennsylvania. 
He had been one of the conductors of the colony of Schwenkfelders. 
George Boehnisch, the first Moravian to come to Pennsylvania, had been 
another, and he made his home at Wiegner's house and farm. Here 
also Spangenberg, commissioned by Zinzendorf to look after the 
Schwenkfelders, in whose welfare the Count was interested, to investi- 
gate the spiritual condition of the Germans generally and to gather in- 
formation about the Indians, had sojourned in 1736, working as a com- 
mon laborer on the farm, "so as not to be a burden to any one, to 
identify himself with the rustic population and to disarm the prejudice 
of those sects which disliked schoolmen and gentry, and laid much 
stress on extreme plainness of dress and habit as a religious distinc- 
tion." 

At Wiegner's house religious services had been held regularly since 
1738, and hence it came to pass that Whitefield, having been at Phila- 
delphia, thirty miles south, was preaching to "a multitude of people" 
at Wiegner's house on the fifth of May, 1740. On the same day Peter 
Boehler, who was sojourning there, preached in the German language 
for those who did not understand English, and from the meeting of 
these two eminent men on that day important consequences were to 
result. For Whitefield, knowing that some of the Moravian brethren 



10 AN HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE WHITEriELD HOUSE 

who had come with him from Georgia were carpenters, proposed to 
Peter Boehler that he should superintend the building of the house he 
designed as a negro school on his land in the Forks of the Delaware, 
employing for the work the Moravians who had come with him to 
Pennsylvania. Boehler, who saw in this offered employment the possi- 
bility of preventing the dispersion of his brethren, agreed in the first 
place to go to the Forks of the Delaware and locate Whitefield's land. 

On the evening of the same day Whitefield preached at the house of 
Henry Antes, "the pious layman of Frederick Township," whose home- 
stead and mill were some miles west of Wiegner's farm, and on the 
afternoon of the next day Boehler, accompanied by Anthony Seiffert 
and Henry Antes, all on horseback, set out to look for Whitefield's 
tract in the forest-wilds of eastern Pennsylvania. 

The Pioneer Explorers. 
Peter Boehler, Anthony Seiffert, Henry Antes— a Christian trium- 
virate, whose names are venerated and their memory cherished wher- 
ever their altruistic and devoted labors are known. The first two were 
young unmarried men, but both of them ordained Moravian clergymen; 
the third had been married fourteen years and was the father of a 
family, a member of the German Reformed denomination and a faithful 
friend of the Moravian Brethren. 

Peter Boehler, born December 31, 1712, in Frankfort on the Main, 
had not yet completed his twenty-eighth year. Student at the univer- 
sities of Jena and Leipslc, magister legens or junior professor 
at the former, he there, through the influence of Spangenberg, found 
the way of life, and formed a life-long friendship with Count Zinzen- 
dorf. Accepting a call to enter the service of the Moravian Church 
and go to America as pastor of the little colony established at Savan- 
nah, Georgia, and as a missionary among the slaves of South Carolina, 
he was ordained by Bishops Zinzendorf and Nitschmann in the chapel 
of the old feudal castle of the Ronneburg in Wetteravia, and in 1738 
left for England. In London he became acquainted with John Wesley 
and his brother Charles, and was instrumental in leading them and 
others into the light and peace which they had not yet found. His 
discourses and conversations in German, Latin and English were at- 
tended by many inquirers, and when he left London Wesley wrote in 
his journal: "Peter Boehler left London to embark for Carolina. O 
what a work has God begun since his coming into England! Such a 
one as shall never come to an end till heaven and earth pass away." 

After a voyage that lasted altogether for five months Boehler and 
his assistant, George Schulius, arrived at Savannah. Owing to the po- 
litical troubles occasioned by the war with Spain the settlement had 
decreased, and after laboring faithfully for a year and suffering many 
privations, severe illness proved almost fatal to him and his assistant 
died. Seeing that under the circumstances the small remnant of the 
colony could not remain in Georgia, Boehler gladly accepted the offer 
of the Rev. George Whitefield, who had arrived at Savannah on Janu- 
ary 1, 1740, to take them with him on his sloop to Pennsylvania, and 
on the 25th of April they arrived at Philadelphia. 

Having in his heart the peace that passeth all understanding, Boeh- 
ler's cheerful, practical piety, his love and good-will toward all his 
fellowmen, were mirrored in his pleasant countenance, and caused him 
to perform any task, however humble, in the service of his brethren 
and his Divine Master. An accomplished linguist, known at the uni- 
versity as "the learned Peter Boehler," he was willing to deny himself 
and to suffer the loss of worldly honor, and manifested admirable tact 
in the leadership of his brethren for which he was destined. His well- 



AN HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE WHITEFIELD HOUSE H 

knit frame and robust health gave him great power of physical endur- 
ance, and possessing a voice of great compass and melody he often led 
the service of song in the congregations he addressed. Full of zeal 
and activity, he was worthy of the honor conferred upon him when he 
was consecrated a bishop in 1748; worthy also of the testimony of one 
of his biographers, that "next to Zinzendorf and Spangenberg no one 
among the early Moravian Fathers in America is better known and 
more highly celebrated in the Christian Church generally than Peter 
Boehler." 

Anthony Seipf,brt was one of the Georgia colonists who had come 
with Peter Boehler to Pennsylvania. A Bohemian by birth, the third 
of the six sons of George Seiffert, who with his family held to the evan- 
gelical faith and practice of the Ancient Unitas Fratrum, to escape 
from the cruel persecution of all Protestants and find refuge where 
they could enjoy religious liberty, he, with his brothers Joseph and 
Frederick, emigrated from Bohemia to Herrnhut in Saxony, whither 
his aged father, in his eighty-fourth year, followed him four years 
later, alone and on foot. In 1735 Seiffert had arrived at Savannah with 
eight other brethren of the first colony under the leadership of Spang- 
enberg. The next year Bishop David Nitschmann, the first Bishop of 
the Renewed Brethren's Church — to whom, on March 13, 1735, the 
episcopacy of the Ancient Unitas Fratrum had been transferred by the 
Rt. Rev. Bishop Daniel Ernestus Jablonsky, D.D., Royal Court 
Preacher at Berlin, Church Counsellor of the Royal Consistory, etc., 
etc., and oldest Senior and Bishop of the Bohemian and Moravian 
Brethren in Great Poland, and his colleague, the Rt. Rev. Bishop 
Christian Sitkovius^ — arrived at Savannah with another colony of 
twenty Moravians. 

John and Charles Wesley had sailed on the same vessel from Eng- 
land, and soon became intimate with Bishop Nitschmann and much im- 
pressed by the Christ-like spirit which he and his brethren displayed, 
and by their calmness on the occasion of a storm. 

Soon after their arrival Bishop Nitschmann organized the colony as 
a regular congregation, ordained Anthony Seiffert to the ministry, in- 
stalled him as pastor of the congregation, for which office he had been 
chosen by the colonists, and at the same time ordained Spangen- 
berg — by virtue of his Lutheran ordination in Germany regarded as in 
deacon's orders- — a Presbyter of the Renewed Brethren's Church. This 
ordination, we are told on good authority, is noteworthy as being the 
first regular ordination performed by a Bishop of the Christian Church 
in the Englis.h Colonies of North America, for until after the Revolu- 
tion the ministers or representatives of the Anglican and Roman 
Catholic Churches remained under charge of the Bishop of London, 
and of the Vicar Apostolic of London, respectively, and there was no 
Bishop of those Churches resident in the Colonies.' 

The election of Anthony Seiffert by the colonists, and his ordination 
by Bishop Nitschmann, as well as his subsequent services and official 
position, show that he was evidently qualified for the ministerial office, 
and was regarded as a capable leader of his brethren. Some years 
older than Boehler, of a quiet and unassuming disposition, calm and 
self-possessed, as he showed himself on more than one occasion, he 
too was ready to render any service that might be required of him, and 
to be a faithful co-worker with his brethren in their arduous under- 
takings. 

Henry Antes, the third of this little group of explorers, having come 
to America with his father prior to 1725, had been living on his farm 
and working at his trade as a wheel-wright and mill-wright, his home- 
stead and mill being probably on the Swamp Creek, "in the country 
back of Pottstown," (since 1784 Frederick Township in Montgomery 
County) then called Falckner's Swamp and included in Philadelphia 
County. He had been married in 172 6 by a clergyman of the Reformed 
Church, of which he was a member. In 1736 he became acquainted 
with Spangenberg, who was then sojourning at the farm of Christopher 
Wiegner, in whose house a number of earnest men of various creeds 
met for mutual edification and counsel for the religious improvement 
of the spiritually destitute region, forming the undenominational union 
known as "The Associated Brethren of Skippack," an unpretentious 



12 AN HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE WHITEFIELD HOUSE 

Evangelical Alliance. Henry Antes was the leading spirit in this work, 
and in 1741 issued a Circular which led to the formation of the Synod 
of Pennsylvania, in which most of the religious denominations of 
Pennsylvania were represented, and in which he was a very prominent 
member. 

Through these meetings he was brought into closer relations with 
the Moravian Brethren, in 1745 became a resident of Bethlehem, for 
a number of years rendered eminent services in superintending tem- 
poral concerns, especially the erection of mills, and in 1749 was made 
a Consenior Civilis, having the legal care of the Brethren's 
estates and property. As a Justice of the Peace in the county of Bucks 
he also performed many timely services for the Moravians, and in 1752 
accompanied Bishop Spangenberg to western North Carolina to select 
a tract of land for a projected Moravian settlement. 

But this was twelve years after he had accompanied Peter Boehler 
and Anthony Seiffert on their expedition to locate Whitefield's tract in 
the Forks of the Delaware, whither we now, after thus forming their 
acquaintance, propose to follow them. 

Whitefield's Tract Located. 

It was the afternoon of the sixth of May, 1740, when these three riders 
started on their journey to an unknown location "far back in the 
country"; a journey that was fraught with possible peril from wild 
beasts of the forest and from hostile Indians; a journey the issue of 
which was clouded with uncertainty, but which was to have momentous 
and happy results for many generations. 

But these three men are not faint-hearted weaklings, dreading possi- 
ble hardships or danger. It is not the first time that they have taken 
their lives in their hands and gone forth to the execution of purposes 
that led them to peril by land and sea. They have endured hardships 
manifold and have successfully contended with and overcome difficulties 
and dangers, and have been well trained in the school of patient and 
brave endurance, so unavoidably necessary in their day. Capable of 
physical as well as mental endurance, stout of heart in the conscious- 
ness that they are entering upon a mission that has been providentially 
assigned them, firm of faith in the ever-present guardianship of that 
Almighty One whose servants they rejoice to be, this journey into an 
unbroken wilderness, a trackless forest through a great part of which 
none of their race has yet penetrated, has no terrors for them. Clad in 
their ordinary civilian gai'b, unarmed save for the axes that may be 
needed to hew their way through the dense undergrowth, in calm se- 
renity of soul they set forth, neither knowing nor fearing what may 
betide them. 

We can picture to ourselves the scene as they cheerfully mount their 
stout steeds — a moderate mastery of equestrianism being an indispens- 
able accomplishment in those pioneer days — with the necessary provi- 
sion for man and beast in their saddle-bags, as they will probably have 
to bivouac in the woods. Antes affectionately bids farewell to his family, 
then consisting of his aged father, wife and seven children, the eldest 
being a daughter of fourteen years and the youngest an infant son of 
two months, who lived to become a Mioravian missionary in Egypt, 
where he was crtielly bastinadoed by an avaricious Bey. Boehler and 



AN HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE WHITEFIELD HOUSE 13 

Seifeert also bid good-bye to their kind friends, and then the cavalcade 
starts, in the first place, perhaps, for the Wiegner farm, or else for 
Joseph Mueller's in the Great Swamp. Antes is naturally the leader 
of the party, and with his trusty rifle, that may be needed for defence 
from the wild beasts of the forest, precedes his two clerical companions, 
as the narrow trail forbids their riding abreast. There is no King's 
highway there, and the way may be rough, but as they ride through the 
primeval forest they beguile the time sometimes with serious and anon 
with lively conversation, for they are no gloomy ascetics, and the hearts 
of two of them are glad at the prospect of useful occupation in their 
time of need, and the possible opportunity of friendly intercourse with 
the red children of the forest, to whose need of spiritual instruction 
they would be glad to minister. Their conversation is chiefly in their 
native German, although they have acquired some knowledge of the 
English language, and the magister of Jena can discourse fluently in the 
language of the ancient Romans, and in others if need be. 

It is the beautiful month of May. Nature, fully awakened from the 
long repose of winter, smiles upon them from the fresh foliage of oak 
and chestnut, birch and maple, and all the rejuvenated woodland family, 
vocal with the songs of the birds that have returned from southern 
climes, where two of these travelers had also spent some time with 
the ill-fated Georgia colony. Nothing daunted by past sad experiences, 
ready to take the new task that is given them gladly, with cheerful 
hearts they follow the trail that leads them away from the habitations 
of their kind and the haunts of civilization into the domain still claimed 
by its aboriginal savage inhabitants. 

The songs of the birds along their way remind them that they also 
have songs to sing — Boehler has a voice of great compass and melody — 
and anon they lift up their voices, and the solitudes of the Pennsylvania 
forest hear the sweet songs of Zlon resounding in the grand old Ger- 
man chorales they learned in their far distant European home. Peace- 
fully and unmolested they pursue their way through the northeastern 
corner of Bucks County and into the extreme eastern part of Lehigh 
County (then, with Northampton County included in Bucks,) until 
they reach the farm and mill of Nathaniel Irish, agent for William 
Allen, from whom Whitefield had bought the tract of five thousand 
acres which they are seeking. 

Mr. Irish had cleared a farm, built a mill and established a land-office 
as agent of William Allen, near the mouth of the Saucon Creek, where 
the village of Shimersville is now situated. About a mile southwest 
of Shimersville, in the forks of the Hellertown road, he had a stone- 
quarry which was the terminus of the first highway, or King's road 
from Philadelphia to the Lehigh. His place was a general rendezvous, 
so that it would seem very natural for these horsemen to halt there 
and have an interview with him before proceeding farther, especially 
as Mr. Irish could inform them of the exact location of Whitefield's 



14 AN HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE WHITEFIELD HOUSE 

tract, the lines of which had been run when it was purchased by Wil- 
liam Allen. 

It appears likely that they lodged that night at Mr. Irish's house, or 
at that of the good Hollander Ysselstein, on the south bank of the Le- 
high River, where either this party of pioneers or the following one in 
December of the same year passed a night on their way to the Nazareth 
manor. They had ridden twenty or twenty-five miles that afternoon, 
and would have to ride twelve or fifteen more before they would reach 
their destination. Moreover, we are told by historians, that they 
started on their journey on the sixth of May and reached the tract on 
the seventh, and if that is correct, they must have spent the night of 
the sixth somewhere on the way. 

Assuming, then, that they set out from Mr. Irish's or Ysselstein's 
house on the morning of the seventh, they ere long reached the banks 
of the Lehigh River on its winding way from its sources in the hills 
and mountains of northeastern Pennsylvania to its junction with the 
Delaware River at the site of the present city of Easton. Into its clear 
waters they entered, crossing it at the old Indian ford, a little distance 
belo'W the point where the Monocacy Creek flows into it. Ascending the 
forest-covered elevation on its northern side, they passed within a 
stone's throw of the spot on which the very next year the little log 
house that should be the first house of Bethlehem was to stand, "aside 
of the Indian path that led up from the ford into the northwest trail 
to the mountains." It may be they stopped for a refreshing draught 
from the copious spring that gushed forth at the foot of the declivity, 
and that was to be of such prime importance to the future settlement. 

Passing on over the future site of the settlement, they little thought 
that in years to come it would be covered with the buildings of a town 
that would grow into a large and prosperous municipality, nor dreamed 
they of the purchase of five hundred acres on this northern bank of 
the river, that would be offered to them and their brethren by Mr. 
Irish. The silent forest covered it all and received them into its mys- 
terious depths as they journeyed on northward in the neighborhood 
of the present villages that line the road from Bethlehem to Nazareth, 
until they finally knew that they had reached the tract purchased by 
Mr. Whitefield. 

The day was passed in a careful survey and examination of its to- 
pography and natural resources, "its timber, stone and springs of water, 
and in discussing various eligible building sites," and their conclusions 
were of a favorable character. 

But they find that they will not be the first to occupy a part of this 
five thousand acre tract. In an opening in the forest they discover a 
considerable Indian village, with patches of corn and a peach orchard 
around its wigwams. The Delaware or Fork Indians are they, claiming 
this region as its original inhabitants, under their chief, Captain John, 
"one of the six doughty sons of the noted Delaware chieftain called old 
Captain Harris; high-spirited, sensitive men, cherishing grudges against 



AN HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE WHITEFIELD HOUSE 15 

the English, and smarting under the indignities put upon them by the 
Six Nations," their conquerors. With great displeasure they have seen 
the gradual encroachment of white settlers upon their lands, although 
by a treaty made with them some years previously, based on a deed 
purporting to have been made by several chiefs to William Penn, they 
were required to vacate the Porks of the Delaware. 

Did our explorers perhaps visit these original lords of the soil in 
their wigwams and assure them — as some of them understood and spoke 
more or less English^of their friendly sentiments and peaceful inten- 
tions? It would appear not an unlikely thing for them to do, as one 
of the principal objects of their coming to this continent was the be- 
ginning of a mission work among the Indians, and they had inaugu- 
rated such a work among the Georgia Indians under their friendly 
chief Tomotschatschi. At all events, they were not dismayed or alarmed 
by the presence of these dusky dwellers on Whitefield's tract, and hav- 
ing concluded their labors for the day they proceed to encamp for the 
night a short distance from the Indian village, which occupied ground 
northeast from the site of "Old Nazareth," where the first buildings for 
the occupancy of the farming community of Nazareth were subsequently 
erected. 

"On a gentle acclivity, at the foot of which ran a little brook" through 
the natural meadows subsequently named the Long Meadows, they find 
a large, wide-spreading oak tree, evidently a veteran of the forest, 
whose softly rustling leaves whisper a welcome to the weary travelers 
as they offer them protection. Here they dismount, and after seating 
themselves beneath the oak, * which was to become historic as "Boehler's 
Oak," and in the bark of which his initials and those of Anthony Seif- 
fert could be seen as late as 1799, they join in an evening sacrifice of 
praise and prayer, and then compose themselves to rest sweetly and 
securely under the shadow of the Almighty. 

The dawning of the next day finds them ready to start on their re- 
turn to Henry Antes' farm, and thence to Philadelphia, where Mr. 
Whitefield is waiting to hear their report. This being favorable, he 
closes his contract with William Allen, and renews his proposal to the 
Moravian brethren as to the building of the house. 

* It is to be regretted that the precise location of this tree is no longer known. 
Bishop Boehler, when making an address during the loTefeast on the lawn of the 
Whitefield House, on the occasion of the laying of the corner-stone of Nazareth 
Hall on May 3, 1755, pointed out the tree to his hearers, and therefore it cannot 
have stood very far from the Whitefield House. In a paper by H. A. Brickenstein, 
read before the Moravian Historical Society, on March 9, 1857, entitled, "Peter 
Boehler's Oak-tree," we read : 

"The King's highway, extending from Bethlehem to the Indian settlements of 
Minnesink, 7-an close by the tree, through the present orchard (formerly belonging 
to the farm known as Plantation No. 4) to the Rose tavern." 

This farm is located just outside of Nazareth, on the northeast, at the turn of 
the road leading to Nisky. The King's highway above mentioned was not in ex- 
istence when Boehler and his companions rested under the oak. It would appear, 
therefore, that the tree stood N.N.E. from the Whitefield House. 

Some years ago the late Bro. Andrew G. Kern, Sr., of Nazareth, who was 
greatly interested in the history of Nazareth, and diligently examined the diaries 
of the congregation, located the stump of the tree, and a part of it was deposited 
in the museum of the Moravian Historical Society, but no one can now point out the 
exact spot on which the tree grew. 



16 an historical sketch of the whitefield house 

The Pioneer Btjh.ders. 

His proposal being accepted, two of the explorers, Boehler and 
Seiffert, together with five other brethren, John Martin Mack, John 
Boehner, George Zeisberger and his son David, Matthias Seybold, two 
women, George Zeisberger's wife Rosina and Hannah Hummel, who 
had come from Georgia with the brethren, and ,two boys, Benjamin 

Sommers and James , who had also come with them from 

Georgia, prepare to go to Whitefield's tract, in order to begin the build- 
ing of the house. 

They set out from Philadelphia May 27th, all on foot, the women of 
those days being inured to hardship as well as the men, and after a 
toilsome march of three days on the King's highway, leading from 
Philadelphia to Irish's stone-quarry and thence along the old Indian 
trail through the forest, they reach the grand old black-oak under which 
the three explorers had rested three weeks before. "Their first act was 
one of worship. Sitting beneath a black-oak tree, they returned thanks 
in the sweet hymns of their native land for God's protection and loving 
care. It was the evening sacrifice of the first congregation that wor- 
shipped the Lord at Nazareth." 

Huts made of a rude fraine-work of poles roofed with bark and 
wattled with the branches of trees were soon constructed as a needed 
shelter from the rain which added to the discomfort of these solitary 
pioneers, until they were able, at the end of July, to complete a house 
of unhewn logs near the site at which Whitefield's commissioners, who 
had meanwhile arrived, marked off the dimensions of the large house 
that was to be built. "The edifice was to be of massive stone, and its 
plan was so extensive that it would have been a great undertaking even 
in the populous sections of Pennsylvania; in a wilderness such as con- 
stituted its site difficulties of every kind presented themselves." 

However, Boehler displayed his usual zeal and activity. He "secured 
a force of lime-burners, quarry-men, masons, board-cutters and 
teamsters from Goshenhoppen, Whitemarsh, Maxatawny, Lower Saucon 
and elsewhere," and rejoined his brethren on the last day of June. Then, 
we may suppose, their Indian neighbors looked on with mingled feelings 
of wonder and displeasure while these pale-faces busied themselves with 
the excavation of the two cellars, quarrying and hauling the stone for 
the foundation-walls, felling the trees that stood on the selected site, 
"on a gentle hill commanding a noble view of rolling forests to the 
distant valley of the Delaware eastward." But the aboriginal dwellers 
in Welagomeka, as they named their village, offered no opposition, al- 
though they may have thought that the Great Spirit was not favoring 
the undertaking, as "it rained frequently, and there was difficulty with 
the lime and sand and the incompetence of some of the workmen." 
Boehler was not to be discouraged. "Like Paul, he became all things to 
all men." The learned professor of Jena superintended the carpenters, 
worked with them as much as he could, walked every week ten miles to 
the nearest mill — Irish's — and procured the necessaries of life, 



H^ 




AN HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE WHITEFIELD HOUSE 17 

"preached the gospel to his brethren and prayed with them day by day. 
In the whole course of his long career as Professor, Minister and Bishop 
there was no period in which his work set forth features so heroic as 
when he cheered and consoled, enlivened and kept united this little 
band of Moravians in the face of the many discouragements that sur- 
rounded them." 

But the secret counsels of the Supreme Disposer of events had decreed 
that the house which Whitefield had planned with a benevolent purpose 
should not be built for him; that it should indeed be built, but should 
serve a purpose different from that which he intended. 

The month of September ushers in another rainy season, and with 
the walls laid only up to the door-sills, for which £300 had already 
been expended, it is evident that the house cannot be completed before 
winter. Boehler repairs to Philadelphia, reports to Whitefleld's agents 
and obtains permission to put up a comfortable building in which to 
pass the winter. This second one of the two small log houses that 
stood near the stone house was ready for occupancy early in November.* 

The Building Suspended. 
Upon Boehler's return from Philadelphia the hired workmen are dis- 
missed, and the company of pioneers build the second log house, "of 
hewn logs," both houses being thirty feet long and twenty-four feet 
broad, with three dwelling-rooms and other appurtenances, and make 
provision for wintering in the wilderness. At the beginning of Novem- 
ber the second log house is ready for occupancy, and Boehler, learning 
that Whitefield had arrived at Philadelphia from Georgia, goes thither 
a second time in order to report to him personally. To his surprise he 
finds that, as a climax to all the difficulties they have encountered, they 
are now in a position still more threatening. Whitefield, whose mind 
has been prejudiced against the Moravians by the misrepresentations 

* Opinions differ as to which one of these two log houses was the first one built. 
In his "Early History of the Church of the United Brethren in America" Bishop 
Levin T. Reichel gives the priority to the one that is still standing, "the small log 
house that was afterwards enlarged," and states that afterwards "they erected a 
two-story log building which was finished in November." This one was taken down 
about sixty years ago. On the other hand, in his "History of Bethlehem," published 
1903, Bishop Levering speaks of "the older of the two log houses, long ago de- 

In a note to a paper, entitled "Disjecta Membra," by the late Rev. W. C. 
Reichel, published in the Transactions of the Moravian Historical Society. Vol. I, 
Part X, the priority Is given to the log house that is still standing; while in an 
address delivered by the first President of the Moravian Historical Society, the late 
Mr. James Henry, at the first anniversary meeting in November, 1858, he said : 
"When autumn came on it was found expedient to suspend operations and throw 
up the tico-story log building, as is generally supposed. Our chroniclers of the 
present day differ as to which was the very first of those two log buildings, but 
from the fact that seventeen persons took shelter here during the ensuing winter, 
I should conclude that a single cabin with but two or three rooms, like the lower 
one of these buildings would have been inadequate." However, by the time that 
winter cpme on. and before the arrival of Bishop Nitschmann and his company, 
both of the log houses were standing and could be occupied. The first log house 
was built of unheivn logs, the second of liewn logs. The log house that stood 
nearest to the Whitefield House was a two-story building, as may be seen m the 
picture. The one-story log house, still standins and occupied, is known as the 
gray cottage." A bronze tablet on its front states that it is the second house of 
Nazareth. 



18 AN HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE WHITEEIELD HOUSE 

of some who were opposed to their settling in Pennsylvania, receives 
him coldly and at once starts a theological discussion in Latin about 
the doctrines of free grace and election or predestination, on which they 
differed, and finding that he could not convince his opponent of error 
and of the correctness of his own position, gives an instance of that 
want of self-restraint charged to him by the historian Lecky, and sum- 
marily commands Boehler and his brethren to leave his land. Thus 
they are threatened with ejectment from their little log-houses and 
with exposure as homeless wanderers to the rigors of the winter that 
was even then at hand. 

But they are not to suffer this additional hardship and distress. By 
the interposition of Mt. Irish, who, by his intercourse with the Mora- 
vians, and especially with Boehler, had been favorably impressed with 
their character, Whitefield is persuaded fo retract his hasty and unkind 
order, and they are at least permitted to remain at Nazareth during 
the winter of 1740 and '41, which proved to be unusually severe. 

"We can imagine with what astonishment the lonely dwellers in the 
two log houses listened as they were gathered together and heard Boeh- 
ler's account of his interview with Whitefield and of their abrupt dis- 
missal from the work for which he had engaged them and their expul- 
sion from his land. Faithfully they had thus far fulfilled their part 
of the contract, and were ready to resume their labors as soon as it 
should be possible to do so, but now the door had been shut in their 
faces, and as they looked upon the unfinished walls of the house they 
had expected to build, and in place of the scene of activity that had so 
lately enlivened the solitude of that forest-wilderness noted the silence 
and desolation that now had usurped its place, sad thoughts will natu- 
rally have burdened their minds, and the uncertainty of their future 
destiny when the winter should be past and they would be forced to 
leave the only home they had in the wide, wide world, will have at least 
temporarily agitated them. 

But they put their trust in Him who had led them and providentially 
cared for them thus far, and they knew that He would not forsake them. 
So they address themselves to the work of necessary preparation for the 
rapidly advancing winter. A store of firewood is gathered and made 
ready for use, provisions such as they can obtain are laid up in advance 
of the time when the trail through the forest will be covered with deep 
snow and well nigh impassable, and the log houses are made as capable 
as possible of excluding the freezing temperature. 

"Man's extremity is God's opportunity." In the midst of their per- 
plexity, while sadly making these necessary preparations for their iso- 
lated winter sojourn in the wilderness, with none but the Indians of 
Welagomeka as near neighbors, a messenger arrives! With joy they 
greet one of their brethren, who, lately arrived from Europe, brings 
to them the cheering intelligence that more brethren and sisters are 
coming in a short time, and that there are prospects for carrying out 
the plan of founding a permanent settlement in Pennsylvania. 





RT REV. PETER BOEHLER RT. REV. DAVID NITCHMANN 

RT. REV. A. G. SPANGENBERG 
RT. REV. JOHN MARTIN MACK REV. DAVID ZEISBERGER 



AN HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE WHITEFIELD HOUSE 19 

On the eighteenth of December a company of five persons, who had 
reached Philadelphia three days before, arrived at the log houses on 
Whitefield's tract. Their leader was Bishop David Nitschmann, accom- 
panied by his uncle, David Nitschmann, Sr., Christian Froehlich, Anna 
Nitschmann, daughter of David Nitschmann, Sr., prominent among the 
women of Herrnhut and subsequently Count Zinzendorf's second wife, 
after the death of the Countess, and Mrs. Johanna S. Molther. Thus 
six were added to the eleven pioneers who had been dwelling on that 
spot since the end of May, making seventeen persons to be accom- 
modated in the two log houses. The accommodations were naturally 
of the most primitive character; but they were all willing to endure 
hardship as good soldiers of the cross, and knew that whatever discom- 
fort they might now experience would be but temporary. For Bishop 
Nitschmann confirmed the tidings brought by the brother who had pre- 
ceded this company, and soon after purchased from Mr. Irish a tract 
of five hundred acres, which the latter had offered to Peter Boehler on 
the north bank of the Lehigh River, the site on which afterwaras arose 
the Moravian town of Bethlehem. 

But the joyful anticipation of dwelling on land which they could call 
their own was tempered with keen regret at parting with the man who 
had been their faithful and efficient leader, for Boehler was recalled 
to Europe, his services being needed in England, and, accompanied by 
Bishop Nitschmann, left them on the twenty-seventh of December, after 
holding with them the first Christmas service and the first Moravian 
celebration of the Holy Communion in the Forks of the Delaware. 

By this time the snow had come, and lay at least two feet deep all 
around them, and in the cellars and upon the unfinished walls of White- 
field's house and all over the landscape which they could see through 
the bare limbs of the trees, stretching away for miles eastward. But 
they are not idle in their isolation. David Nitschmann, Sr., commonly 
called Father Nitschmann, an emigrant from Moravia to Herrnhut in 
January, 1725, who had suffered imprisonment and bodily torture in his 
native country for the sake of the gospel, now in his sixty-fourth year 
but still hardy and vigorous, went with two other brethren over the 
snow-covered trail through the forest to the tract purchased on the 
Lehigh, and there felled the first tree for the building of the first house 
of Bethlehem on the site selected by them in the rear of the present 
Eagle Hotel. But they could not proceed with the building of the house 
until the beginning of the next year, 1741. 

Meanwhile, when the storms that beat fiercely on the two log houses 
on Whitefield's tract permitted, they made the first missionary attempts 
among their neighbors, the Delaware Indians, and succeeded in gaining 
their good-will, so that the chief. Captain John, desired to make his 
ten-year-old son the permanent ward of Brother Froehlich, with whom 
he spent the winter. Gathered around the fire on the hearth these 
hardy pioneers found many subjects for interesting conversation, or en- 
gaged in the simple domestic duties of their housekeeping, falling 



20 AN HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE WHITEFIELD HOUSE 

largely to the share of the devoted sisters who had not hesitated to 
hrave the hardships of this pioneer life in the forest-wilds on the 
frontier of civilization. Daily they united in family worship and their 
voices sweetly joined in glad hymns of praise and thanksgiving, or were 
lifted in fervent prayer and supplication to the God who dwells in the 
wilderness as well as in the populous abodes of men, the Saviour whom 
they loved and served^ 

Their abode in these first houses on the Nazareth tract was coming 
to an end. The house on the Lehigh tract being nearly ready for occu- 
pancy in the spring of 1741, those of the pioneers who were working at 
it took up their abode there, and before the end of June the rest of them 
had finally removed from the Barony of Nazareth to the tract on the 
north bank of the Lehigh. They were seventeen in number, eleven men, 
four women and two boys constituting the household in the first house 
of Bethlehem, a building of "square-hewn logs, twenty by forty feet in 
dimensions, one story high, with sleeping quarters for a number of 
persons in the attic under the steep-pitched roof." 

The Whitefield Tract Deserted. 

Now, in place of the expected resumption of activity on the Whitefield 
tract, no sound is heard within or around the two deserted log houses, 
and the desolate foundation-walls of the intended stone house bear 
silent testimony to the futility of human plans, however good, when not 
in accord with the wise decrees of Providence. The stones that had 
been quarried and hauled await in vain the hands that should place 
them in their destined position, and the trees that have been cut down 
lie where they fell around the site of the building doomed to wait for 
its completion until the snows of two more winters have covered its 
foundation. The Indians of Welagomeka are again monarchs in their 
wild domain, and miss, some of them, at least, not without regret the 
friendly pale-faces who sought to teach them of the ways of pleasant- 
ness and the paths of peace. They will come again. Captain John, and 
will come to stay, for the entire five thousand acres of the Barony of 
Nazareth have been purchased for £2500 by the Moravian Brethren 
from Mr. Whitefield, who, in embarrassment through the death of his 
financial agent, Wm. Seward, is unable to prosecute his well-intentioned 
plan, or even to hold the land he had bought from Mr. Allen. 

The Lehigh tract is the scene of active building operations. The first 
small log house having been completed and occupied, the brethren, sure 
of permanent occupancy, begin to fell timber for a larger house. Father 
Nitschmann as active as any of them. Henry Antes and Anthony 
Seiffert have come to assist them, and before the end of the year the 
•two-story house, forty-five by thirty feet, built of hewn logs chinked 
with clay and straw, is almost completed. * Two apartments in it are 
made ready in December for Count Zinzendorf and his daughter Be- 

* It still stands, with the addition built soon after, increasing the length to 
ninety-three feet, weather-boarded in recent years, the oldest house in Bethlehem, 
at the northeast corner of Church and Cedar Streets. 



AN HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE WHITEFIELD HOUSE 21 

nigna, who, with some other brethren and sisters arrive on the twenty- 
first, in time to join in the Christmas Eve service on the twenty-fourth, 
in the first house, on which occasion the new settlement receives the 
name "Bethlehem." 

Land is cleared for cultivation, and a congregation is organized, but 
the unoccupied Whitefield tract is not forgotten, and in June of the next 
year Captain John and his tribe are surprised to see visitors on the 
premises of the two log houses, for Count Zinzendorf has come to in- 
spect the forsaken locality. He has an interview with the Indians, but 
does not succeed in convincing them that they ought to vacate the tract 
in favor of its new owners. Therefore, a colony of fifty-six immigrants 
from Germany and England having arrived at Bethlehem, those from 
England are sent to occupy the log houses on the Whitefield tract. These 
colonists "consisted mainly of young married couples and single men, 
representing various professions and handicrafts. They were all not 
only people of some education, a few being university men, but were 
also of well tested Christian experience, capable of carrying out the 
plans that had been made for itinerant preaching, founding schools for 
the hosts of neglected children in Pennsylvania, and doing mission 
work among the Indians." With this colony, to the joy of his old 
friends, came Peter Boehler, who for two years had been active in Eng- 
land, and had there married a most capable and estimable wife. 

The English brethren at Nazareth can hold converse with those of 
Captain John's Indians who understand their language, but their stay is 
brief, for in a few months they are removed to Philadelphia, and one 
of the log houses is occupied the next fall and winter by care-takers, 
as the Indians had been maintaining their ownership of the land by 
trespassing on the premises, thCj garden that had been made by the 
pioneers probably tempting them to appropriate its products. 

It was evidently very necessary that these undesirable neighbors 
should be removed, and therefore, when Count Zinzendorf again visited 
Nazareth, in December, 1742, shortly before his return to Europe, he 
opened negotiations with them, offering to pay them for their peach 
orchard and other improvements, and to these terms they agreed, 
especially as their over-lords, the Six Nations, who had conquered them 
and made them "women," had previously ordered them in very con- 
temptuous and stern language to leave the tract at once. Before the 
end of the year they departed for the Minnesink region, beyond the 
Blue Mountains, but some were not satisfied, and cherished an intention 
to seek revenge, which they joined with others in carrying out fearfully 
some years later. 

Two Indians, however, remained in the vicinity. The well-known 
Delaware chief, Tatamy, who had received the name Moses when he 
was baptized by David Brainerd, the missionary among the Indians in 
New Jersey, who employed him as an interpreter, was one of them. He 
had taken a patent for a tract of three hundred and fifteen acres, a few 
miles north of the site of Easton, in the neighborhood of the present 



22 AN HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE WHITEriELD HOUSE 

Tatamy Junction on the Northampton Traction Company's electric line, 
and lived there. The other was Captain John, the half-brother of 
Teedyuscung, the famous warrior. He had not gone to the Minnesinks, 
and as a land-owner and professed Christian obtained permission to re- 
main in the Forks of the Delaware. He built a cabin at the "Deep 
Hole," up the Bushkill, then called Lehietan and Lefevre's Creek, where 
he lived in solitary state until his death in 1747. Occasionally he took 
game and furs to Bethlehem, and in August of the year just named sent 
to Biethlehem for medicine, as he was very ill. He died a few months 
later, and had requested that his remains should be interred in the little 
Indian graveyard at Welagomeka, which the brethren then living at 
the place had enclosed with a fence and kept in repair. And thus came 
to an end the Indian history of Welagomeka. 

The First School at Nazareth. 
After Oaptain John's Indians had evacuated their village, solitude 
and silence reign again around the unfinished stone house and the two 
unoccupied log houses. Unoccupied until July 18, 1743, when in one of 
them a school for boys is opened by Brother John C. Franke, who has 
come from Bethlehem through the intervening forest with ten boys. 
Thus the first school on the Barony of Nazareth, the forerunner of Naza- 
reth Hall, is founded. The voices of teacher and scholars are heard in 
the little log house that has become the earliest seat of learning at the 
very place where Whitefield also had contemplated founding a school, 
and the environs of the unfinished Whitefield House resound with the 
joyous ebullitions of youthful spirits and witness the jocund sports of 
boyhood; while doubtless they make excursions with their teacher into 
the surrounding forest, and in the fall of the year discover many a nut 
tree that yields to them a generous store of its esculent fruit so welcome 
to the heart and palate of boyhood. Roaming abroad after school hours 
they find many an interesting nook in the glades around their primitive 
home, and are the first to explore the site of Welagomeka for Indian 
arrow-heads and other relics of its aboriginal inhabitants. It may be 
Oaptain John comes sometimes from his cabin on the Bushkill, and 
gives them lessons in woodcraft, teaching them to make bows and 
arrows, and showing them how to hunt for squirrels and to set traps 
for rabbits and other small game. At any rate, they probably enjoy 
their residence in this woodland home, and when in September the 
masons and the carpenters come to work at the Whitefield house, what 
a new source of interest and enjoyment it is to see the progress of the 
work and be sometimes allowed to help here and there as sturdy boys 
can. For in the Moravian schools of those days— and there were a 
number of them — the children were instructed in manual as well as in 
intellectual pursuits. 

Building Resumed. 
The brethren at Bethlehem, where they have built a grist- and saw- 
mill and made other improvements, are too busily engaged there to do 



ATS HISTOKICAL SKETCH OF THE WHITEFIELD HOUSE 23 

anything on the Nazareth tract except perhaps to make an occasional 
brief visit. But in August, 1743, they receive word that a large colony 
may be expected to arrive in a few months, and as a considerable part 
of the colony is intended for the Nazareth tract, which is to be devoted 
chiefly to agriculture, the time has at last come to resume work on the 
large stone house that has been left desolate for almost three years. 

Masons are therefore sent up from Bethlehem, some of them from 
Germantown, and there being now plenty of other good help, the soli- 
tude of the deserted spot is broken by the active and energetic labors 
of the mechanics engaged in the work of completing the erection of the 
Whitefield house. More stone must be quarried, more trees must be 
felled, lumber must be brought from the saw-mill, and all the various 
interesting operations be performed that pertain to the building of a 
house. Difficulties must be encountered and overcome, for this is an un- 
inhabited region and there are no good roads anywhere. But Christian 
manliness and courage prevail over every obstacle, and all work to- 
gether in glad harmony, and the walls rise higher and higher day by 
day to the music of the ringing trowels and other tools and the sound 
of miany cheerful voices enlivening toil with pleasant word and song 
and laugh — for they do not consider it wrong to laugh — and together 
they take their frugal repasts in the log houses, and together morning 
and evening they join in family worship, until the solid walls have 
reached the required height and all the carpenters of Bethlehem come 
to raise the frame-work of the roof and shingle it, Anthony Seiffert, one 
of the original pioneers, formerly a carpenter, but oraained by Bishop 
Nitsohmann in Georgia and now the Elder of the congregation at Beth- 
lehem, having the oversight of the wood-work. 

And so the space that has been so long open to the elements in every 
season of three solitary years is covered now with a substantial roof, 
and with all possible speed the work on the interior is pushed by twenty 
carpenters from Bethlehem, that the house may be ready for its destined 
inhabitants when they arrive. Three floors are laid, partitions are set 
up, doors and window frames have found their appropriate locations, 
and before the end of the year behold a well-built structure fit for hu- 
man habitation and solid enough to stand for centuries. 

The Whitefield House has been built. It is a massive stone building, 
fifty-six feet in length, * thirty-five feet in breadth, two stories high be- 
sides the garrets, with a gambrel or double-pitched roof under which 
there are a number of attic rooms on the third floor, in addition to 
eleven dwelling-rooms, two very large rooms or halls on the first and 
second fioors, and two cellars. On the south side there is a row of brick 
inserted in the wall between the first and second floors — in accordance 
with a European custom, we are informed — breaking the otherwise un- 
adorned expanse of solid limestone, and there is a plain board porch at 
the door in the center. There is not time to paint the interior of the 
house, and the substantial woodwork is left to show its natural tints for 

* An extension built in 1907 makes the present length eighty-six feet. 



24 AN HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE WHITEFIELD HOUSE 

many years. It has been said that the door-sills were made of a finely 
variegated soapstone, reputed to have been brought from abroad. 



The First Occupants. 

Meanwhile the expected large colony has gradually arrived at Bethle- 
hem, almost exhausted by their journey after disembarking at New 
York, for men and women alike have come on foot the most of the way 
from New Brunswick, and have suffered from bad weather, bad roads 
and lodging, and often scarcity of food. On their arrival at Bethlehem 
they are tenderly cared for. Boehler and other brethren have sat up 
and waited until late at night the last detachment for that day arrives, 
when all gather in the chapel and hold a lovefeast. The next morning 
another company arrives, "very lame and feeble, but all cheerful and 
happy." "In the afternoon the two Bethlehem wagons come with eleven 
of the women and several men who have quite given out. Then friends 
from Saucon, Maguntsche and the Great Swamp began to come in to 
welcome them to Pennsylvania." 

This colony consisted of more than a hundred persons, and the White- 
field House being ready for occupancy, those who were destined for 
Nazareth, thirty-three young married couples, accompanied by others, 
start for their new home on the second day of January, 1744. "They all 
went afoot, the men in advance with axes making a better road through 
the forest — the first public road between the two places was not laid 
out by order of Court until March, 1745 — the women following with pro- 
vision for a meal on the way. It was evening when they arrived at 
their destination. Bishop Nitschmann, Boehler, Seiffert and Nathaniel 
Seidel (later a Bishop) were there to usher them into their new 
quarters. With their first evening prayer was combined the consecra- 
tion of the chapel in that large building, which for many years was the 
place of worship, ordinarily, for the entire population of the Barony of 
Nazareth. The next day the first organization of a congregation at 
Nazareth took place. The heavy luggage of the colonists had been 
transported by water from the hold of the Little Strength to a ware- 
house at New Brunswick, and numerous trips were made by the Beth- 
lehem wagons during January and February until this considerable 
quantity of freight was conveyed to Bethlehem and Nazareth." (Bishop 
Levering' s History of Bethlehem.) 

Thus the Whitefield House received its first occupants, the sixty-six 
young married people who were to develop the resources of the Naza- 
reth tract. By some of them, however, one of the two log houses was 
also probably occupied, the boys' school remaining in the other until 
June, 1745, when it was transferred to the farm of Henry Antes in Fred- 
erick Township, where a more extensive establishment was opened, 
with Francke as Superintendent and a corps of assistants in secular 
and religious instruction and manual training, together with farmers 



AN HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE WHITEFIELD HOUSE 25 

and a miller to operate the whole plant as given up by Antes for the 
support of the institution. * 

During these first years many changes were made in the external 
arrangements at Bethlehem and Nazareth, as such changes became 
necessary, and the Whitefield House was destined to become the scene 
of some of them, a house of many uses, variously occupied by youth and 
age. 

"Old Nazareth" Begun. 

Before the end of the year, at the beginning of which the thirty-three 
young married couples had taken possession of the house, preparations 
were made for the erection of extensive barns and stables, which event- 
ually completed the four sides of a spacious quadrangle, at a spring not 
far from the stone house. When some dwelling houses had also been 
built there, one of which afterwards contained the meeting-hall of the 
congregation, the place came to be known as "Old Nazareth," after Naza- 
reth Hall and other buildings of the present Nazareth had been erected. ![ 

Into the dwelling houses of Old Nazareth, near the barns and stables, 
the young married couples who were to be the agriculturists on about 
four hundred acres pertaining to this plantation were gradually re- 
moved, as the Whitefield House was now to be an institute for children. 
At the same time it was resolved, in accordance with the suggestion 
made by Henry Antes, that six farms should be opened on the Nazareth 
tract, in order to develop the resources of the domain as the chief 
supply for the support of everything carried on by the central adminis- 
tration at Bethlehem. 

A Girls' Boarding-School. 
A visitor to the Whitefield House in June, 1745, would have heard the 
sound of youthful voices and seen the forms of young maidens in the 
house and on the spacious lawn around it, for it is now occupied by 
eighteen young girls from New York, Long Island, Philadelphia, Ger- 
mantown, Frederick Township, Bethlehem, and other places, six of them 
being Indian girls, with their teachers and guardians, some of the single 
women of Bethlehem, and has thus become a Girls' Boarding-School. 
At the same time all the rest of the single women and girls of the Beth- 
lehem congregation, where accommodations for them are not yet suffici- 
ent are transferred to Nazareth, where one of the log houses near the 
Whitefield House is assigned to them as a residence, besides, probably, 
some apartments in the large house. Here they remiained until 1748, 
when they returned to Bethlehem and occupied the building still known 
as the Sisters' House. 

* Between the years 1745 and 1748 schools for boys and girls were opened and 
conducted with good patronage at various places in Pennsylvania, not only for the 
children of Moravian parents, but for others also whose parents were glad to em- 
brace the opportunity of having the mental, religious and practical education of 
their children thus provided for. 

^ One of these dwelling houses, a small log house, is all that is left of Old 
Nazareth. It stands on the east side of Whitefield Street, below Belvidere, where 
its position, forming an angle with the street, indicates the location of Old 
Nazareth. 



26 AN HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE WHITEFIELD HOUSE 

A year passes peacefully away, and then, in July, 1746, a visitor does 
arrive at the "Whitefield House whose presence doubtless creates some- 
thing of a sensation. He has never been on the Barony of Nazareth be- 
fore, although he was a former owner of it, the Rev. George Whitefield 
himself, accompanied by Henry Antes, a Mr. Dean and a servant. The 
Diary kept at Nazareth says: "Whitefield was very cordial. He was 
particularly struck by the order and cleanliness observable in all parts 
of our establishment, and among other things stated it to be his convic- 
tion that to care for and train awakened souls was the special calling 
of the Brethren's Church. We set the best we had before him at dinner, 
but he and his companions partook sparingly. While viewing the 
school he manifested extreme delight to see the children spinning with 
the distaff instead of the wheel. The Indian girls, however, were the 
objects of his most regardful interest. In fact, he was reluctant to part 
from them, and also from Becky Burnside, whom he had baptized in 
Georgia. 'My hopes,' he observed, 'are partly realized, as Nazareth has 
become the seat of a school somewhat after my plan. It causes me 
much joy to find Nazareth peopled with children of God. Of this the 
Lord gave me an earnest.' At four o'clock the visitors set out on their 
way to Bethlehem, by way of Gnadenthal. Whitefield took an affection- 
ate farewell, remarking as he turned to go, 'Can there any good thing 
come out of NIazareth? Come and see.' " 

Mr. Whitefield's visit to Nazareth was well timed, for had it occurred 
a few years later he would have found other occupants of the large 
stone house. Another institution that had arisen at Bethlehem through 
the necessities of the times was transferred to Nazareth. On the new 
road that had been laid out between the settlements the Bethlehem 
wagons might have been seen on the sixth of January, 1749, transport- 
ing the girls of the school, with their teachers and all their parapher- 
nalia, to the stone building in Bethlehem sometimes spoken of as the 
Old Seminary, but commonly known as the "bell house," fronting on the 
well-known quadrangle on Church Street "where the unbroken local 
existence of the school now known for many years as the Young Ladies' 
Seminary, began." 

The Nursery. 
On the next day the same wagons conveyed the quite young children 
of the Nursery at Bethlehem, twenty-nine little boys and twenty-six 
little girls, with their nurses and attendants, to Nazareth, where they 
were domiciled in the Whitefield House, hence for the next fifteen years 
known as The Nursery. Here the infant children of those parents who 
were engaged either as missionaries or at various industrial pursuits, 
working, as necessity required, in a cooperative union, with no adequate 
provision for separate family homes, were cared for and reared "in the 
nurture and admonition of the Lord." Not only were their physical 
wants duly attended to, but such instruction, secular and religious, as 
their tender years were capable of receiving was also given to them, so 



AN HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE WHITEFIELD HOUSE 27 

that this institution "may justly be called the first infant-school that 
ever existed." 

It was "under the general superintendence of an intelligent and relia- 
ble married couple with the assistance of such others in the external 
work of the establishment as the number of children, sometimes up- 
wards of seventy, required." 

Thus the Whitefield House, as a children's home, presents another 
interesting phase of its manifold utility, and we can see its little occu- 
pants in their daily infantile activity, standing on life's threshold, and 
taking the first steps in their innocence towards a later comprehension 
of that life, as yet to them a hidden mystery; or as they close their eyes 
in slumber upon their little cot-beds, safe from harm by day and night, 
"for I say unto you that in heaven their angels do always behold the 
face of my Father which is in heaven." 

Improvements on the Nazareth Tract. 

In this same year a large accession is made to tne population of Beth- 
lehem and of the Barony of Nazareth, for two more companies of immi- 
grants have arrived from Europe. With the first company the brethren 
at Bethlehem are delighted to greet "good old Christian David," the in- 
defatigable evangelist among his persecuted countrymen in Bohemia 
and Moravia, who had brought about their settlement at Berthelsdorf 
and the founding of Herrnhut in 1722, and who was now on his way to 
Greenland, with the pioneer missionary, Matthew Stach, to build a 
storehouse. While the timber for this house was getting to New York, 
he helped the carpenters to put up the main structure of the group later 
called "Old Nazareth." 

The two colonies that had arrived brought a large number of young 
men, sturdy farmers and mechanics, and building operations and other 
improvements progressed rapidly at Bethlehem, and three additional 
settlements and farms were opened on the Nazareth tract — Gnadenthal, 
Christiansbrunn and Friedensthal — with saw-mills and grist-mills, 
and various other industries besides the farming operations. The road 
between Bethlehem and Nazareth was improved by two companies of 
brethren, one at each end, who succeeded in making it far superior to 
others in the surrounding country. A road was also made to the Indian 
missionrstation at Gnadenhuetten, on the Mahony, twenty-five miles to 
the north, beyond the Blue Mountains, where a fiourishing settlement 
of Christian Indians had been founded in 1746 by the missionary, John 
Martin Mack. About one mile north of the Whitefield House, on the 
northern border of the Barony, a primitive tavern had been built for 
the accommodation of travelers to and from the Minnesinks. It was 
called "the Rose," because a red rose was painted on its sign-board, 
commemorating the quit rent for the Barony of Nazareth of a red rose 
in June of each year. * 



* After being conducted for twenty years, during the latter part of tlie time m 
connection with a store to which the Indians came to trade, and after sheltering 
refugees from the terrible outrages committed by Indians who, in 1755 and '56, 



28 AN HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE WHITEFIELD HOUSE 

Most important of all, as Count Zinzendorf expected to come to 
America again, the corner-stone of a house for him and those who 
should come with him, and which was to contain a central place of wor- 
ship for all the people on the Nazareth domain, was laid May 5, 1755, on 
which occasion the lawn at the Whitefield House was the scene of a 
large assemblage at a lovefeast, during which Bishop Peter Boehler 
made an address in which he gave historical reminiscences of the place 
since he led the first band of pioneers to the locality, and pointed out 
the oak-tree under which they spent the first night. May 7, 1740, fifteen 
years, less two days, before. 

The new building was to be a manor-house, and as the limestone walls 
arose until, on August 13th, the masonry was finished and the frame- 
work of the roof could be raised, the house was seen to be of stately 
proportions, even as it still is, named since October, 1756, "Nazareth 
Hall." 

Indian Outrages. 

The panic of the awful November of 1755 interrupted the work at the 
manor-house and, during the months of terror that ensued, it was en- 
tirely suspended. For the Indians, in alliance with the French, had 
taken up the hatchet, and in fulfillment of their cherished plan of re- 
venge, were attacking the settlements north of the Blue Mountains with 
tomahawk and torch and scalping knife, and those who escaped their 
cruel and murderous enmity were fleeing to the settlements farther 
south. "Within a short month fifty farms, with their houses, were 
plundered and burned, and upwards of a hundred persons were killed 
on the frontier of Northampton, on both sides of the Kittatinny or 'end- 
less hills.' " The mission-station at Gnadenhuetten was attacked and 
burned to the ground, eleven of the missionaries stationed there were 
massacred, and but few escaped with some of the Indian converts and 
fled to Bethlehem. 

Bishop John Martin Mack, who was living with the converts in the 
new settlement started by their request on the opposite side of the Le- 
high (now Weissport), saw the flames of the burning buildings of Old 
Gnadenhuetten, where the other missionaries stationed there lived to- 
gether, and were killed by the savages in the most cruel and brutal 
manner. Bro. Mack brought such of the Christian Indians as had not 
fled into the forest to Bethlehem, and then hastened to Nazareth, where 
he superintended the guards who patrolled along the line of the Mora- 
vian settlements. 

On the twenty-fifth of November upwards of sixty terrified men, 
women and children from the country north of the Barony of Nazareth 
came to the Rose Inn, seeking shelter and protection from the maraud- 
ing Indians. In January, 1756, the savages sacked New Gnadenhuetten, 

were laying waste' the farms north of the Blue Mountains, and murdering the 
settlers in revenge for the loss of their land, the tavern was sold to private parties 
in 1772. It was taken down in 1858, A granite marker bearing the inscription, 
"Site of the Rose Inn, 17,'52-1772," stands in the front yard of a modern farm- 
house on a retired country road. 



AN HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE WHITEFIELD HOUSE 2i) 

invaded the plains adjacent to the Barony, and overran the foot of the 
mountain between the Lehigh and the Delaware. Ascending columns 
of smoke marked the progress of the destroyers. 

"The winter of 1755-'56 was not only the darkest in the history of the 
Province, but also in the annals of American Moravian history. A 
flourishing mission had been irreparably ruined, involving a heavy pe- 
cuniary loss, and it seemed at this crisis, now that their plantations 
were become frontier posts, as though the seal of doom had been set 
upon all their hopes and aspirations." 

On December 21st a fugitive brought the report to Friedensthal that 
the following night had been fixed upon by the Indians for a simultane- 
ous attack on all the plantations of the Barony. The presence of a 
military guard, however, foiled their intention. From November, 1755, 
to the end of February, 1756, companies of soldiers were posted at Naza- 
reth and the adjacent settlements for their protection from the savages. 
For these soldiers quarters had to be provided and supplies of bread 
were baked statedly in the large family oven. There were frequent 
alarms and repetitions of outrages during the following years, and it 
was necessary to be on the watch constantly against a possible sur- 
prise. "On the twenty-fourth of March, 1757, David Heckewelder, father 
of John Heckewelder, the missionary to the Delawares, who was re- 
siding in an apartment in Nazareth Hall (then not fully completed) re- 
ported that he had found, not a stone's throw from the house, sus- 
pended from a sapling in the woods, an Indian token wrought of swan's 
feathers — a token such as served to mark the chosen site of a rendez- 
vous for warriors, when about to strike a blow." 

Two of our ministers narrowly escaped death at their hands. "Bishop 
Seidel, on his way from Christianspring to Bethlehem in September, 
1756, espied two Indians watching for him behind a tree. Turning 
abruptly into the forest, he ran for his life, hotly pursued by the sav- 
ages. He ran from side to side for a long time, in order to prevent 
their finding his trail, and then lay down beneath a tree, utterly ex- 
hausted. The Indians failed to discover him, and he got back to Chris- 
tianspring in safety." 

At the base of the limestone ridge which bounds the Long Meadows 
at Nazareth on the south ran a trail between Old Nazareth and Frie- 
densthal, often traversed by the brethren on their missions of cheer and 
comfort to men whose hearts were failing them among the harrowing 
uncertainties in "which they lived. As one of the brethren was passing 
along this trail in November, 1756, a lurking savage on the ridge thrice 
raised his rifle, but hesitated to take the life of the man whom he had 
once heard speaking words of peace in the little chapel on the Ma- 
honing. But the fourth time he was determined to perpetrate the deed 
and obtain the twelfth scalp needed to make him a captain of his tribe, 
and calling upon the Evil Spirit to smite him a paralytic if he should 
quail again, he drew a deadly bead upon his intended victim, when his 
rifle fell to the earth from a nerveless grasp and he became an impotent. 
Later, it is said, he became a convert and a helper at the mission. 



30 AN HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE WHITEPIELD HOUSE 

And now the Whitefield House must undergo another transformation, 
the saddest in its varied history. Brother Graff, the Superintendent, 
dreams in the night of November 30, that his bees are swarming though 
it is winter. The next morning a sudden order oomes from Bethlehem 
to take thither the young children of the Nursery and the girls of the 
school that had been held since December, 1753, in the log house nearest 
to it. Five wagons are drawn up on the lawn before the house, and in 
them the seventy-eight little ones of the Nursery and the girls of the 
school with fifteen tutoresses, nurses and attendants, and the curator 
and his wife, all under the charge of the Rev. John M. Graff and his 
wife, are hastily placed, and then the procession sets out on the road 
to Bethlehem, fortunately now a good one, the children manifesting 
innocent delight at this sudden visit to Bethlehem and reveling in the 
new sights along the way. The travelers arrive safely at their destina- 
tion, and the children eagerly enjoy the meal ready for them on their 
arrival, for all knowledge of the danger that is threatening is prudently 
kept from them. 

The next day two wagons are sent to Salisbury with an escort, to con- 
vey the boys of that school and those who had charge of them to Beth- 
lehem, the population of the place being thus increased by two hundred 
and eight souls in eight days. At the same time the widows who had 
been occupying one of the log houses at Nazareth — still standing and 
known as "the gray cottage" — ^^are transferred to Gnadenthal for safety. 

Refugees in the Whitefield House. 
In November, 1755, the half frantic refugees from their desolate farms 
began to pour into Bethlehem and Nazareth, and their condition was 
most pitiable. At the end of January, 1756, there were over two hun- 
dred at Bethlehem and at the Crown Inn on the south side of the Le- 
high, and at the end of the month there were four hundred and forty- 
nine at the settlements on the Nazareth tract, two hundrea and fifty- 
three being housed at Nazareth, seventy-five at Friedensthal on the 
Bushkill, fifty-two at Gnadenthal, forty-eight at Christianspring, and 
twenty-one at the Rose Inn. Of this unmber two hundred and twenty- 
six were children. The Whitefield House and the two log houses ad- 
jacent were entirely occupied by those at Nazareth during the next six 
months. "They came," says one writer, "like hound-driven sheep; Pala- 
tines, most of them, with uncouth names; some, as we read, with 
clothes not fit to be seen of mankind, and some with scarce a sufficiency 
of rags to cover their nakedness." "It was as promiscuous an assem- 
blage as ever had been gathered in so short a time," writes another, 
"embracing men of diverse nationalities, and creeds, and women of di- 
verse tongues. Many of them had escaped with their lives only, from 
the tomahawk and torch of the infuriated savages. Several of these 
unfortunates came here to die. There were orphan children, too, and 
mothers with new-born babes; men and women half clad, cold and 
famishing." 



AN HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE WHITEFIELD HOUSE 31 

Think of this tremendous accummulation of misery and distress fill- 
ing all the apartments of the Whitefield House, that had just been the 
peaceful and happy abode of innocent childhood. There were children 
also in this wretched multitude, but how different is their condition 
from that of those who had so shortly before occupied the house! 
Feeble, frightened children, clinging timorously to the poor garments of 
weeping mothers; orphan children, bereft of father and mother by the 
cruel tomahawk and with no one to care for them; bold children, it may 
be, hardy as frontier children generally are, but heedless of the peace 
and comfort of others, and prying into all the strange places of their 
new and wonderful abode. The apartments of the house on all three 
floors resound with the feeble, pitiful cries of infants almost perishing 
from the lack of nourishment and from exposure to the inclemency of 
winter; with the sighs and groans of their sorrowful elders, some of 
them sick unto death; with the conversations of others in strange and 
uncouth accents; with the prayers of some, the imprecations of others, 
eager for an impossible revenge upon the red-skins who had brought 
such desolation and ruin upon them — it was enough to make the very 
stones in the solid walls cry out in mingled horror and sympathetic 
pity for the unfortunate creatures who had sought their shelter and pro- 
tection. 

Truly, a different kind of school from those that had preceded it in 
this self-same building, and from that which Whitefield had planned ; for 
this is the school of adversity, a stern teacher, whose lessons are so 
hard to learn, and whose discipline is so severe. Yet here these un- 
happy victims of this discipline, whether patient or the reverse, have 
found that mercy with which a kind Providence tempers the rude blasts 
that have beaten upon their devoted heads. What a blessing is the old 
stone house in which they have found refuge to the homeless and house- 
less in that dreadful winter of 1755-'56! For not only are their tem- 
poral wants provided for during their sojourn at Nazareth, by the 
brethren of the settlement, but they are also spiritually fed with the 
Bread of Life. 

The buildings of the settlements were stockaded with stout palisades, 
ten feet in height, with sentry-boxes, eight men constituting the watch. 
For the Indians had come south of the mountains and were lurking and 
committing depredations in the vicinity, as they continued to do at in- 
tervals for several years. But the constant vigilance maintained, and 
the measures adopted to let skulking Indians know that there was no 
unguarded spot, defeated their thrice-made plans to destroy the settle- 
ments on the Nazareth and Bethlehem land. 

The refugees having gradually returned to their homes — forts having 
been constructed on the frontiers by the national government— in June, 
1757, doubtless after a complete and thorough house-cleaning, the 
Nursery and girls' school of Nazareth were returned to the Whitefield 
House and log house adjacent. But two years later the little girls of 
the Nursery were taken back to Bethlehem, and only boys were ad- 



32 AN HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE WHITEOFIELD HOUSE 

mitted until 1764, when those remaining were transferred to Nazareth 
Hall, where a school for boys had been founded in 1759, and the institu- 
tion in the Whitefield House was closed. 

It is an interesting fact that the Rev. John Michael Graff, who had 
been the general superintendent of the Nursery in the Whitefield House, 
a graduate of the University of Jena in Germany, was the first Princi- 
pal of Nazareth Hall, and that "towards the close of the year the same 
Francke who sixteen years previously had begun the first boys' school 
on the Nazareth tract, took charge of the renewed and prosperous insti- 
tution." 

In the year 1763, while the little boys were still kept in the White- 
field House, the Indians east of the Alleghenies, stirred up by the great 
conspiracy of Pontiac in the west, unburied the hatchet and resumed 
their savage onslaughts upon the white settlers along the frontiers. 
After the appalling Wyoming massacre they came south of the Blue 
Mountains, invading Northampton County, and causing another influx 
of fugitives into the Moravian settlements. 

But on the twelfth of October of the above year Indian fugitives came 
to Nazareth. The mission at Wechquetank, commenced only three years 
earlier about six miles north of the Blue Mountains, near the site of the 
present village of Gilbert, in Polk Township, Monroe County, was 
threatened not only by hostile Indians — who had attacked a company 
of militia, drunken murderers of some Christian Indians on their way 
to a village on the Susquehanna — but by another body of militia also, 
who were going to Wechquetank to massacre the whole congregation, 
suspected of having made the assault. Hence the converts, no longer 
safe there, were brought by Bro. Grube, the missionary in charge, to 
Nazareth, where "the Grube's" (for Mrs. Grube was with her husband) 
"and their dear brown flock were lodged in the Widows' house" — the 
present "gray cottage" — "the old mothers having vacated the same day 
before yesterday and moved into the Nursery. The single sisters also 
moved into the Nursery for the sake of greater security." 

"Monday, October 24. Our Indians built themselves a hut behind the 
former Widows' house, to be occupied by a couple of families." On the 
following Saturday, "the little Indian congregation had a very blessed 
celebration of the Lord's Supper." And on the next Monday David Zeis- 
berger and the Christian Indians replaced the palisades around Naza- 
reth. A week later, however, accompanied by Bro. and Sr. Grube, the 
Indians were removed to Philadelphia, by order of the government. 

An Apartment House. 
For ninety long years, after the closing of the Nursery, in striking 
contrast with the previous twenty-one, during which the Whitefield 
House had been the scene of such multifarious activity, a spirit of silent 
repose seemed to have settled down upon it, in so far as its prominent 
usefulness in connection with the work of the Church or momentous 
crises in the life of the settlement was concerned. During all those 



AN HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE WHITEFIELD HOUSE 33 

years it was the quiet abode of families and individuals in the common 
walks of life, or of those whose services the Church had recognized by 
granting them a home in their declining years. Doubtless there were 
occasional happenings of an interesting character, and possibly among 
the inmates there were those whose life-story was tinged with more or 
less of the romance of the latter part of the eighteenth and early years 
of the nineteenth century, and who could tell many an interesting tale 
of personal experiences and of times very different from those in which 
our lot is cast. 

It is not improbable that some of the tenants of the Whitefield House 
after the Nursery had been closed had been among the young married 
couples who were its first occupants in 1743, and afterwards moved into 
the dwelling houses of Old Nazareth, then first erected; and they had 
many interesting reminiscences of their voyage from Europe and arrival 
in America, of the clearing of the land and all the farming operations; 
and they had very vivid recollections of the terrible years when the 
Indians swooped down upon the frontier settlements, and refugees filled 
the Whitefield House and the two log houses, and palisades were 
erected, and guards had to be on duty day and night. 

Some of them, peradventure, saw and conversed with civil and mili- 
tary visitors before and during the War of the Revolution, as such visi- 
tors "generally went through the 'Hall' and the 'Nursery,' and extended 
their visits to the 'Rose' and to Priedensthal on the Bushkill." Some of 
these peaceful dwellers in the Whitefield House might refer to the visits 
of the Provincial Governors, William Denny and Richard and John 
Penn, as well as to the later visits of Lord Montague, the Governor of 
South Carolina, the French Minister, Chevalier Gerard, and others, 
courteously escorted by the Rev. John Etwein, of Bethlehem. Generals 
Sullivan, Gates and Schuyler, Baron De Kalb and possibly other mili- 
tary officers, they had also seen, and they could speak of the companies 
of soldiers destined for the Continental army, or of prisoners taken in 
some battle, who were brought to Nazareth and had quarters assigned 
them in the large barn at Old Nazareth or in the woods near by. They 
could tell tales of the foragers, mostly cavalry, who were encamped at 
Christianspring and Friedensthal for two months, to the alarm of the 
inhabitants, who were, however, not greatly molested by them, and they 
remembered how a part of Count Pulaski's division were lodged in the 
Old Nazareth barn, and how Bro. Lembke, the pastor, preached a ser- 
mon for them at their request, in the chapel at Nazareth Hall, at which 
they and other members of the congregation were also present, that 
being then their usual place of worship. 

"The conduct of these soldiers while staying at Nazareth was unex- 
ceptionable, and the brethren parted with them on friendly terms. But 
that this warlike array was no very agreeable interruption may be in- 
ferred from the words of the diary, 'On the following day we got rid of 
these guests.' " For the inhabitants of the village "were often called 
upon to vacate their houses for the accommodation of these rather un- 



34 AN HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE WHITEFIELD HOUSE 

welcome intruders, unwelcome especially when their presence in the 
village happened to interfere with a church festival or some special 
service that could not but be seriously marred by the terrors and cir- 
cumstances of war." 

The militia tax, the hard times and high prices, the poor wages and 
all the privations of the time, those who had lived through them could 
not forget, and even the sisters could tell how they collected various 
herbs to serve as a substitute for tea, the genuine article being unat- 
tainable. Some of the old men, while they drank their "vesper" coffee 
and smoked their pipes afterwards on the lawn on summer afternoons, 
or by the hearth-fire- in winter, could tell how, as messengers to the 
brethren of Hope, N. J., they had been obliged to take a circuitous route 
by the ferries and fords of the upper portion of the Delaware River, ex- 
ercising great vigilance to elude the guards stationed there, and some- 
times narrowly escaping capture and imprisonment. For many years, 
doubtless, the stories these early tenants of the Whitefleld House could 
tell were repeated by their successors, thankful for the peace and tran- 
quility that it was their privilege to enjoy, until the war of 1812 again 
harrassed the country and for a few years brought upon it a repetition 
of the disquiet and alarm of the days of the Revolution. 

With these unassuming denizens of the Whitefleld House we must 
admit that this period of inconspicuousness was but another interesting 
phase of the manifold utility of the house originally planned by the 
charitable spirit of George Whitefleld. The young and the old, the 
glad and the sad, the sturdy and the feeble, might come and go, but the 
solid walls still stood ready to receive generation after generation as 
each sought shelter within them. 

"It was always," writes one, "to most persons a house of an unde- 
flned or undeflnable interest, whether this interest centered in its 
unique architecture, or its dingy walls, or its mysterious presence, or its 
hipped roof that was all of it that looked out over the tree-tops upon 
the world around, or in the curious historical associations that cling to 
it and carry us far back, even to the days of old William Penn. There 
was a time within our memory when it stood back from the dusty 
street, and when its approach from the highway was by a stile, which 
being crossed, led you under the shade of embowering trees, to the 
carpet of green that spread out invitingly on the sunny side of its gray 
limestone walls." 

A Theological Seminaey. 
In this long, historic slumber did the venerable domicile at last dream 
of an awakening such as came to it in the year 1854, when it once more 
temporarily housed a scholastic institution, and that one of the greatest 
importance to the Church? For in that year it became the home of the 
Moravian Theological Seminary, and young men pursued their classical 
and theological studies in the same apartments, or at least within the 
same walls, that had in bygone years heard the voices of youthful 
maidens reciting their lessons, and of little children struggling with 



AN HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE WHITEFIELD HOUSE 35 

the letters of the alphabet. Whitefield had designed the edifice to be a 
school, and was glad to find one established here in his day. Was his 
house predestined to have a scholastic spirit enshrined within its sturdy 
frame, ever and anon to exercise a potent spell upon its inmates or up- 
on those who had control of it, and remind them of the use for which 
he first intended it? What says the record? "When the Synod of 1855 
determined upon the establishment of a College in connection with the 
Theological Seminary, it was at the same time decided to effect, if pos- 
sible, an exchange of the Seminary building"— at that time the former 
Sisters' House of the Nazareth congregation — "for the Whitefield prop- 
erty, and to locate both the College and Seminary there." And when 
the exchange had been effected the Synod "Resolved, That we strongly 
recommend the continuance of the College on the Ephrata * property at 
Nazareth, as being a most suitable site for the same." The Synod of 
1858, however, after a careful and thorough consideration of the circum- 
stances, uninfluenced by the scholastic spell, resolved that the Theologi- 
cal Seminary should be transferred to Bethlehem, which transfer bar- 
ing been made the same year, the Whitefield House on the Ephrata 
property relapsed into the historic trance of ninety years that had 
preceded the brief revival of the scholastic spell, and was to continue 
now for thirteen years more. 



The Moravian Historical Society. 

Meanwhile another institution of importance had been organized on 
the thirtieth of March, 1857, the object of which was stated by its cour 
stitution to be "the elucidation of the history of the Moravian Church 
in America; not, however, to the exclusion of the general history of the 
Moravian Church," and the name, style and title of this institution was, 
and is, "The Moravian Historical Society." 

The charter members having been active in securing other members, 
and in gathering books of suitable character, and also relics of past Mo- 
ravian days as the nucleus of a museum, this collection, after being for 
one year stored elsewhere, was drawn by the potent attraction of the 
scholastic spell— for is not History one of the greatest teachers?— to 
the Whitefield House, where it was securely housed; and where, on the 
afternoon of Thanksgiving Day, 1858, the first social Vesper II and lit- 
erary symposium of tlie Society was held, the precursor of similar 
annual gatherings until the present day. Happy presage of the dawning 
of a new epoch in the unique life-story of the Whitefield House. 



* The Whitefield House is also sometimes called the Ephrata House, this name 
having been given to it either by Whitefield or by some one of later date, but the 
Ephrata property included also the two log houses and the entire premises. 

^ The "Vesper" is an institution of German origin ; a collation which obtains its 
name from the fact that it is served in the afternoon, generally about 2 o'clock. 
It consists of light refreshments with coffee. The "V" has the soft German sound, 
life the English "F." 



36 AN HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE WHITEFIELD HOUSE 

A Missionary Home. 

"The title of the property which, from the date of Whitefield's trans- 
fer to the Brethren, in July, 1741, had been vested in the governing 
board of the entire Moravian Church or its representatives, was con- 
veyed to the Moravian congregation at Nazareth in 1853, in whose pos- 
session it remained until 1871, when, through the generosity of John 
Jordan, Jr., it became the seat of a Missionary Home and, at the same 
time, the home of the Moravian Historical Society. This kind friend 
purchased the house and the lot, 160x275 feet, of the Trustees of the 
Nazareth congregation early in that year, and a Deed was by him exe- 
cuted to the 'Society of the United Brethren for Propagating the Gospel 
among the Heathen,' providing that that association should hold the 
property in trust, first, for the use of the Moravian Historical Society, 
which should be permitted to occupy the second floor, and secondly, to 
hold all of the rest of the building as a home for visiting and retired 
or pensioned ministers and missionaries of the Moravian Church, sub- 
ject to such rules and regulations as the Provincial Board may from 
time to time establish. At the same time he endowed it with a fund, 
the annual income of which was amply sufficient to pay for the proper 
care and preservation of the house and premises. In the spring of the 
year the work of renovation, or more properly rebuilding, to adapt it to 
the uses for which it was designed, was commenced under the direction 
of a joint committee of the said Society for the Propagation of the Gos- 
pel and of the Moravian Historical Society, and was completed in the 
month of October following. The annual meeting of the Historical So- 
ciety having been appointed for the 18th of October, that day was chosen 
for the dedication of the building. On this occasion a handsome cane 
cut from an oaken beam of the building was presented to the friend 
who had made the purchase of the property and devoted it to its pres- 
ent uses. 

"Since that time the building has served its purpose well as a Mission- 
ary Home and as the home of the Historical Society. A number of re- 
tired orvisiting missionaries and ministers have, from time to time, 
found here a comfortable and quiet resting place, and the annual meet- 
ings of the Historical Society, each with its characteristic 'Vesper,' 
have been regularly held here, with but one exception. 

"Since 1871, when the property was first purchased, endowed and 
adapted to its present uses, the grounds have been beautified and en- 
larged, and the endowment increased by the original donor. In 1888 he 
purchased and added to the grounds the tract immediately adjoining 
on the east, measuring 140x275 feet. In 1875 and 1889 he added the 
lot 125x140 feet in extent, on which the second log house, erected in 
1740, is still standing, in a good state of preservation. His original en- 
dowment to provide for the maintenance of the property has been in- 
creased partly by his own generous gifts, and partly by a bequest se- 
cured entirely by his influence, so that the present income is more 
than enough for the simple expenses of maintenance and repairs. The 




WILLIAM HENRY JORDAN 



JAMES HENRY 



JOHN JORDAN, JR. 



AN HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE WHITEFIELD HOUSE 37 

cost of grading the grounds and sidewalks, and of their adornment with 
trees and shrubs and flowering plants has all been defrayed by him, and 
in its beauty as well as in its usefulness the Ephrata Missionary Home 
stands as a monument to his unostentatious but nobly considerate and 
generous nature. 

"In the summer of 1892, another friend, incited thereto by his ex- 
ample and by intimate association with the many instances of his 
thoughtful benevolence, purchased the house and lot at the southeast 
corner of Whitefield and Centre Streets, and conveyed it to the Society 
for Propagating the Gospel, also in trust for the Missionary Home. This 
foundation therefore now possesses, with the exception of one lot, 70x 
150 feet, the whole block bounded by Whitefield, Centre and New Streets, 
and the alley to the south." * 

The interior of the building being in need of repairs after a continu- 
ous occupancy of more than a century and a quarter, it was entirely 
renovated, or more properly rebuilt, to adapt it to the uses for which it 
was designed. The three floors were connected in the northwest gable 
by a wide and easy stairway, with a fine, heavy balustrade made of old 
oaken timbers torn away during rebuilding. On the first fioor suites of 
comfortable apartments were arranged, with additional rooms on the 
third floor. On the second floor was the Hall of the Society, a spacious 
apartment containing the historical museum and library, with valuable 
paintings and portraits. A door opened upon a porch of suitable style 
at the northwestern gable, and a similar porch was erected at the door 
on the south side of the house. 

An Extension Built. 

Thus rejuvenated, the Whitefield House seemed well fitted to serve 
the new purpose to which it had been dedicated, for many years to 
come. But the end of its metamorphosis was not yet. Thirty-five years 
passed away, during which the library and the museum of the His- 
torical Society increased and multiplied to such an extent that there 
was scarcely room sufficient for them in the large Hall on the second 
floor. Once more the hand of benevolent interest is extended, for in 
the year 1906 Mr. William H. Jordan, of Philadelphia, offered to give 
the sum of $6000 for the purpose of building an addition to the house, 
so as to increase the size of the Hall of the Historical Society and afford 
more space for the apartments of visiting or retired ministers and mis- 
sionaries, the new extension to stand as a memorial to his honored 
father, the late Brother Francis Jordan, of Philadelphia, who through- 
out his long and eminently useful life was an earnest and active mem- 
ber and benefactor of the Society and of the Church he loved. 

This generous offer being thankfully accepted, the busy scenes of 
architectural activity first witnessed on the Ephrata property before 

* Adapted from a paper written for the Sesquicentennial of the Whitefield House, 
in 1893, by the Rev. Eugene Leibert. 



38 AN HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE WHITEFIELD HOUSE 

the middle of the eighteenth century are repeated soon after the begin- 
ning of the twentieth, and the walls of the new structure at the eastern 
end of the house, increasing its length from fifty-six to eighty-six feet, 
rise to the music of the Amphionic lyre of fraternal benevolence and 
filial affection, and are constructed in strictest harmony with the char- 
acter of the older portion, so that the two parts form one homogeneous 
structure. A door with a porch like the one at the western gable is 
placed in the eastern gable, adding to the symmetry of the enlarged 
edifice. The interior of the entire building is supplied with steam heat- 
ing from a furnace in the cellar, and is furnished with electric lighting 
on the three floors and with other conveniences undreamed of by its 
early occupants, and is thus completely modernized. 

The enlarged Hall on the second floor, which is set apart for the use 
of the Historical Society as long as it shall exist, now affords ample 
space for the book-cases of the library and the collection of relics of all 
kinds, as also for the entertainment of the members and guests, up- 
wards of two hundred in number, who attend the annual meetings of 
the Society. The walls are adorned with old oil paintings by the great 
Moravian artist of the eighteenth century, the Rev. Valentine Haidt, 
representing scenes in the life of Christ, and with portraits of Moravian 
clergymen and of other eminent men of the Ancient and of the Re- 
newed Brethren's Church, together with views of Moravian places and 
churches, and a variety of other subjects. 

A marble tablet on the south wall of the room bears the inscription : 
This building was enlarged 

as a MEMORIAL to 

FRANCISJORDAN 

1815—1885 
by his son 

WILLIAM H. JORDAN 

1907. 

While the interior of the building has been thus improved, the ex- 
terior walls, still as solid as when they were erected in 1740, and the 
gambrel roof with its perfectly sound timbers, have with great propriety 
been allowed to remain unchanged. The gray stone walls are now in 
great part covered with a graceful veil of climbing vines, adding with 
their perennial green to the picturesque aspect of the building, and sug- 
gestively emblematic of its renewed historic life; especially the ivy 
which mantles part of the western gable, as it was brought from one of 
which mantles part of the western gable, as it was brought from 
Zauchtenthal, one of the seats of the Ancient Brethren's Church in Bo- 
hemia and Moravia, by the Rev. William Henry Rice, when he returned 
from the General Synod of 1869. The ivy which he brought with him 
he planted at the M^oravian church in Yoi'k, Pa., and a cutting from this 



AN HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE WHITEFIELD HOUSE 39 

plant he planted at the northwest gable of the Whitefield House in 
the year 1876. . The emerald turf of the spacious lawn surrounding 
the house, decked with blooming rose-bushes and other ornamental 
plants and flower-beds, contributes to the simple and restful, yet with- 
al impressive beauty of the tout ensemble. 

On a bronze tablet set in the wall at the porch on the western gable 
appears the inscription: 

THE WHITEFIELD HOUSE 

1740 FOUNDATION BUILT BY GEORGE WHITEFIELD 

BOUGHT BY THE MORAVIANS' IN 1741 AND 

COMPLETED IN 1743 

FIRST PLACE OF WORSHIP AND HOME OF THE CLERGY 

1749 NURSERY FOR THE CHILDREN OP THE COLONISTS 

1855—1858 THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 

1868 MISSIONARY HOME AND MORAVIAN 

HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 

The location of the building is a most appropriate one, in a beautiful 
and retired residential section of the town that has grown up in its 
vicinity since the days and years when the only other buildings nearby 
were the two small log houses built by the pioneers of 1740. From its 
upper windows the eye can still take in the extended landscape east- 
ward, not, as at the time of the erection of this historic mansion, cov- 
ered with the original forest, but presenting to the view the cultivated 
fields and substantial residences that have resulted from its occupancy 
by the white race. All through the years when this change in the sur- 
rounding landscape was gradually taking place, the Whitefield House 
stood, and still stands, as a silent but enduring memorial to the char- 
itable spirit of the man who first designed it, and to the loyal faith and 
courage of its builders. Long may it bear witness to the loyalty of 
those who have built and of those who are still building on the his- 
toric foundation of their predecessors! 

FiNIS. 



..^' 



3477-250 
lot 29 



s«»\W 






^^ 


















■ ^*'% 






0* 



'bV'^ 









■J."'' . 









^ "' -IT -^ 













-n-o^ 

















^o^. .-^ 



■^^ 







0^ : <^, 




4 O 





tS> r\^ o « o . "O-i 






.-iq. 
















<r. 











' .f 



0' 




*LV>L'* ^ 












.^J 









^-'^^ 




